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Send in the clowns!

Page history last edited by mr.cruet@googlemail.com 14 years, 7 months ago

Currently undergoing a rewrite following tester field back.....

 

This is my project I've been working on.

It had some preliminary play testing between me and a friend of some of the key mechanics - however this version has not. 

It's in the form of PDF's.

 

The board - currently two sheets although a final version would make do with one board....

 

send in the clown board.pdf

 

One for rules

 

send in the clowns rules.pdf

 

And two for the two card decks which need cutting out - altough there is not that many cards so it's fairly simple.

 

Ring Master.pdf

crowd cards.pdf

 

The rules also contain a chunk of detail on the design intentions.  I combined the idea of doing a game for a young age group that interested players - with the idea of a move then roll mechanic......

 

Comments (10)

Eve Woodman said

at 2:45 pm on Aug 19, 2009

http://gamedesignconcepts.pbworks.com/f/Send%20in%20the%20Clowns%20-%20Mr%20Cruet.pdf

This is my feedback for your game. Figured it would be easier to do it in pdf, then worrying about the character limit.

mr.cruet@googlemail.com said

at 3:55 am on Aug 20, 2009

Thank you for your comments – all good stuff. My attempt to play yours last night went wrong when I realised that the work printer had done stuff duplex – back to back – which really rather ruined my ability to use the board for example. That's tonight's job…..

Some of the comments make me think that the game you played was really far away from the game I intended you to play – which by definition is going to be my fault as I wrote the rules.

They key one for me was "I don’t actually get what the roles of the dice are?" – when from my perspective the dice pretty much are the game.

If you look at the board each space has a couple of phrase on it. The top one is something like "two of a kind" or "3 in a row". When you land on the square you need to roll your dice to try and match that.

So if it said "two of a kind" – at the start of the game you'd roll your three dice. And see if two of them were the same. If not you get to roll once more time – but your allowed to lock (keep and not reroll) any dice you want to.

Does that make more sense?

Also rounds are vital – because the play order gets worked out every turn. With the person with the lowest score going first. New ring master cards go out every turn. And every space not occupied by a player - gets a new anticipation counter (even if they already have one).

I'll rewrite my rules – see if I can make all this clearer. But I won't be able to get a new version up for a while which is a shame.

Eve Woodman said

at 5:53 am on Aug 20, 2009

Yeah that make it a bit clearer, nice idea, its fun trying to get it to be want you need it to be. But I'm worried that it doesn't affect the outcome, the players are not actually gaining anything by rolling the dice. What is the players gain from rolling the dice to get a match?

Okay then, I can see now why you thinking 3 players or more, as a round for 2 players would be too short and would, I think disrupt the flow of the game for them. So I would say 3/4 players are suited for the game maybe even 5, but that would have to be tested out. To see whether the game could handle 5 people playing it, in context to how big the main board is.

So until you know your maximum number of players, and test the game with that many people, you won't know how many rounds it would take to finish the game. But if you did, you would then work out how many Anticipation tokens you would need, in theory that is.

As when I was testing my own game, writing up the rulles, I kept thinking as if it really was going to go into production and get sold, and by thinking that you need to know how many tokens to put into the game, for it to be a complete game, in one sense.

mr.cruet@googlemail.com said

at 7:07 am on Aug 20, 2009

My rules really did fail to connect with you. They need a serious re write.

If you move into a square and don't get a match - you don't get anything. So you don't draw (and keep) any audience cards, and any anticipation token on the space are lost. It is only if you get the match that you get the cards and get the anticpation tokens.

Which is why I think the dice are the game.

The intention was that players would have to balance risk vs reward. Certain square are harder to achieve (it's harder to get 2 pair on the dice then it is to get 3 of a kind), and square with harder difficulties are worth more cards (either in the sense that you draw more or keep more). Over the course of the game people would get better via the ring master cards as they would get extra dice or extra re rolls which allows them to try going for the harder spaces in the middle which are automatically worth more - and could be worth a lot more due to lots of anticipation tokens on the spaces.

I really wish i'd been there to see how you actually played the game because it does seem to be very different to how I intended it to be played.

When i was writing this out - it was more intended as a "you need at least these many". So you need at least 7 dice to play the game - because somebody might need to roll that many. Until things are firmer - there seemed no point to getting certain thigns nailed down as they would be subject to change....

Eve Woodman said

at 10:12 am on Aug 20, 2009

I would've thought for a re roll, you would just roll the dice that you need to roll again. So then it's a lot simpler, than having loads of dice. That to me makes more sense than having 7 different dice's to do it with.

But this is good that you wasn't there, as it puts your rules to the test. It's better to correct the mistakes now rather than later. Also what I find useful, look at some existing rules, how are they laid out etc. For me I looked at the rules for Pay Day.

But after this further explanation I think i can actually play it, as how you intended it too. It makes much more sense now. But as I said, you dojn't actually need as many dice as you may think. Otherwise your game may end up having 100 dice, which I don't think any tester would have that many dice... not unless they collect dice...But the game for up to say 5 players would need 15 dice. For there to be 3 per person, which i think is enough.

Just think about it, are you just trying to over complicate the things you need?

mr.cruet@googlemail.com said

at 12:19 pm on Aug 20, 2009

This is purely component issue....

But since players are never rolling simaltanously the same set of dice can easily pass round the table. So I think you need seven dice for the game. 3 dice as standard - lots of plus dice ringmaster cards would give you another 3 for 6 dice in total. YOu can also burn stunt cards for extra dice so maybe you might need 9 dice but the odds are seven dice passed round the table is all you need.....

Eve Woodman said

at 2:05 pm on Aug 20, 2009

Okay, just becuase I like nice numbers. I'd say 10 dice, then you could always have a spare dice, especially if one got lost. ;) ooo just to go slightly off topic, I have a round dice with a weight inside lol... Its a cool dice, still 6 sided...

Well after dinner I will have another go at your game, now that it is much clearer, and I'll get back to you, about actual gameplay and I'll think like a Child. (well while playing I'll act as a 8year old).

DSpieth said

at 7:36 am on Aug 25, 2009

Mr Cruet, this is quite the enjoyable game. Please read my full game report here.....

mr.cruet@googlemail.com said

at 1:44 pm on Aug 25, 2009

idiqibus - thank you - that's excellent feedback (and not just because it's nice). From what you've said you went with the correct interpritation of the rules where there was doubt. Stunt cards could be used after rolling- baically whenever you want. Re roll allow you to reroll all your dice.

You will push me to finish version 0.2 soon.

I had reached the same conclusion on a lot of the issues. So smaller board is one of the things I'm introducing.

Interesting you say there were no fails - on a three player game we had whole rounds where everybody failed....maybe we were just unlucky...?

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